A stampede during the ritual stoning of pillars symbolising the devil left 244 worshippers trampled to death, Saudi officials coordinating the hajj pilgrimage said yesterday.

The death toll, if confirmed, is one of the highest in recent years for the annual ceremony, in which millions of Muslims retrace the journey of the prophet Mohammed.

Witnesses told of seeing at least 50 bodies lined up on the roadside. This year up to 2 million people converged on the area around the holy city of Mecca, western Saudi Arabia.

The tragedy occurred as pilgrims, wearing white seamless garments, pushed forward towards the Jamarat bridge in Mina, near Mecca, to take part in the stoning ritual.

The head of hajj security, Brigadier Ali Shoaby, said most of the dead were from east and south-east Asia - mainly from Indonesia, Bangladesh and Pakistan - but they included Arabs and other nationalities.

The ritual is a notoriously crowded one and some clerics disapprove of the activity, regarding it as un-Islamic. Last year 14 pilgrims were crushed there, and in 2001 35 were killed in a stampede. In 1998 119 pilgrims died near the same spot.

The Saudi minister responsible for the hajj, Iyad Madani, told a press conference yesterday that at least seven pilgrims were in a critical condition.

"All precautions were taken to prevent such an incident, but this is God's will," he said. "Caution isn't stronger than fate."

To control the crowds, the Saudi authorities set quotas for pilgrims from each country and required their own citizens to register for the pilgrimage.

Muslims generally want to attend a hajj at least once in their lifetime if they can afford it. Stoning the rock pillars is supposed to demonstrate the pilgrims' deep disdain for the devil. Shoes and insults are also hurled. The pillars mark the site where the devil is said to have appeared to the biblical patriarch Abraham.

The ritual marks the first day of Eid al-Adha, or the Feast of the Sacrifice. After a sleepless night of prayer, pilgrims gather pebbles to throw at the pillars. They repeat the act seven times, chanting "bismillah" (in the name of God) and "Allahu Akbar" (God is most great). One pillar this year was reported to have the word "USA" scrawled on it.

After the ceremony, pilgrims walk to Mecca for the Tawaf, the circling of the holy stone known as the Kaaba. In 1990 1,426 pilgrims were crushed to death in a tunnel in Mecca.

Saudi security forces, which had been monitoring the ceremony from the air, tried to cordon off the area and prevent more pilgrims being crushed. Many worshippers were initially unaware of the tragedy.

During the hajj, Saudi Arabia's most senior cleric denounced terrorism in what was taken to be a reference to al-Qaida, calling it an affront to Islam. The grand mufti, Abdul-Aziz bin Abdullah al-Sheikh, said those who claimed to be holy warriors were shedding Muslim blood and destabilising the country.

"Is it holy war to shed Muslim blood?" he asked. "Is it holy war to shed the blood of non-Muslims given sanctuary in Muslim lands? Is it holy war to destroy the possession of Muslims?"

Many of the victims of al-Qaida-inspired suicide attacks in Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Iraq, Morocco and elsewhere have been Muslims. In speaking of terrorists who killed fellow Muslims, the cleric was referring to the prophet's final sermon which says: "Know that every Muslim is a Muslim's brother, and the Muslims are brethren. Fighting between them should be avoided."

He also criticised the international community, accusing it of attacking Wahhabism, the strict interpretation of Islam followed in Saudi Arabia: "This country is based on this religion and will remain steadfast on it."

Saudi security forces said they had arrested seven suspects, accusing them of planning a "terrorist act". Last Thursday's arrests came on the same day gunmen killed seven people, mainly police officers who were searching a house in Riyadh in another raid.